FINGERHUT MAY HAVE BEEN HURT by the economy and its own mistakes.
But it was really a victim of merger mania.
Federated, a sort of holding company for a group of retail store chains, bought the venerable catalog three years ago and didn’t know what to do with it.
For starters, there was a class difference. Most Federated businesses catered to an upscale clientele, whereas Fingerhut sold to people known in the trade as
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